Good morning. Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow on Friday, which, according to tradition, means he’s predicting an early spring – something ‘ole Phil doesn’t do very often. Historically, he’s only predicted early springs 16% of the time.

Could this mean something historic is ahead? The last time Phil predicted an early spring was in 2020… and we all know what happened that year.

But, never fear. “Historic” doesn’t necessarily mean “bad,” and the cosmic scales are in need of some rebalancing. S/o to Phil for the reminder of big things ahead👊.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.81-minute read.

P.S. First time reading? Subscribe here for free.

"The meaning of life is that it stops."

–Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

On Saturday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced that a vote will take place this week on new legislation seeking an additional $17.6 billion in US military aid to Israel.

• The move sets up a direct challenge with the Democrat-controlled Senate, which is currently negotiating a broader spending package that covers Ukraine, Taiwan, and the southern US border.

Better together apart

The Senate’s bill would send ~$95 billion in foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, as well as $18.5 billion towards stricter immigration enforcement at the US-Mexico border. The new border measures include increasing the amount of detentions and deportations, as well as making it more difficult for migrants to claim asylum.

• But Speaker Johnson and the GOP-controlled House say the Senate’s bill is dead-on-arrival once it reaches the House.
• Instead, House Republicans are pushing for a split approach that would address Israel’s war effort separately from Ukraine, Taiwan, and the US southern border.

The arguments:

• Democrats: President Biden and congressional Democrats frame the passage of more foreign aid as a make-or-break moment for Western-style governments against authoritarian leaders in Russia and China. They also argue more border funds are necessary to prevent the US immigration system from overflowing, due to a surge in unauthorized migrants.
• Republicans: Many congressional Republicans say the border security measures included in the Senate’s bill aren’t strict enough to slow down or prevent unauthorized immigration. Some GOP lawmakers also believe the US should stop funding Ukraine to the tune of $75+ billion over the past two years, and instead use the money on domestic issues like immigration.

👀 Looking ahead… Both chambers of Congress are scheduled to hold votes on their respective spending packages later this week.

📊 Flash poll: Which of the following congressional options do you most agree with?

• The Senate bill (aid to Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan and funds for border security)
• The House bill (only aid to Israel, with further discussion on other areas)
• Funding for immigration, but not foreign aid
• Funding for some or all foreign aid, but not immigration
• No funding at all
• Other

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• 📞🙅‍♀️ Sure, you can request to be put on the “Do Not Call” list, but that’s only one list of one company… that doesn’t cut it when your data is constantly being targeted.

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🌍🎗️ Global cancer rates are projected to increase 77% by 2050, per the WHO. In a new report published Friday, WHO scientists predicted there will be 35 million new cancer diagnoses in 2050, up from 20 million last year. The scientists also found lung cancer was the most common form of the disease in 2022, followed by breast, colorectal, prostate, and stomach cancers. Separately, a recent American Cancer Society report found the number of Americans dying from cancer fell 33% between 1991 and 2021.

🇺🇸🇮🇷 The US launched dozens of airstrikes targeting Iran-backed militants in Iraq and Syria. US military forces struck a combined 85 locations used by Iranian forces and Iran-backed militants on Friday, marking America’s first retaliatory strikes for the killing of three US soldiers in Jordan last weekend. Iran has denied direct involvement in the Jordan attack, and warned that it will respond to any threat from the US – though top officials on both sides say they wish to avoid a war or wider conflict in the Middle East.

🇦🇺🪙 A lawsuit challenging an Australian man who claims he invented bitcoin kicks off today. The London-based trial centers around Australian computer scientist Craig Wright, who claims he’s the man behind Satoshi Nakamoto – aka the mysterious creator of bitcoin who abruptly vanished two years after bitcoin went public in 2008. Wright is facing a lawsuit from Crypto Open Patent Alliance, a non-profit org aimed at keeping crypto technology free from patents, alleging that his bitcoin claims are false.

If Meta was a person, it’d be almost able to buy itself a beer. Sunday marked exactly two decades since 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg launched a digitized Harvard student directory called “The Facebook” – a site that now claims ~40% of the world’s population as monthly active users (3.1 billion people).

Here are some of Facebook’s major happenings over the past 20 years:

• 2004: “The Facebook” hit the 1 million user mark ten months after launching as an exclusive service for college students.
• 2005-06: Facebook dropped “The” from its name because of Sean Parker, opened up access to anyone over the age of 13, and launched its “News Feed.”
• 2012-14: The tech giant made a trio of major purchases – Instagram for $1 billion, WhatsApp for $19 billion, and Oculus VR for $2 billion – held a record-setting IPO, and reached the 1 billion user mark.
• 2016-18: Facebook cut ties with political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica after learning it improperly obtained millions of users’ data. Zuckerberg also testified before Congress over Facebook’s handling of user privacy.
• 2021-24: Facebook changed its corporate branding to Meta, reached a $1 trillion market cap for the first time, and saw the largest single-day valuation increase in history (+$197 billion) after announcing a brand-new stock dividend.

👀 Looking ahead… Meta says it’s currently focused on two long-term bets for the future: AI and the metaverse.

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💬 Quoted… “The most innovative sector in craft [beer].”

• This is how Bill Shufelt, a former hedge fund trader turned founder of Athletic Brewing, described the market he was targeting – nonalcoholic beer – when he placed an ad for a business partner after experiencing a line of rejections longer than the wait time at the DMV. Athletic’s founding idea? To create a nonalcoholic beer that actually tastes good. And it seems they succeeded. The brewer recently became the #1-selling nonalcoholic beer in America, raking in north of $90 million in sales last year. In fact, at Whole Foods, Athletic now sells more than any other beer – including the ones with alcohol. The brand’s rise comes amid an upswing in the nonalcoholic beer market. Nonalcoholic beer sales in US grocery, convenience, and liquor stores have nearly tripled since 2019, and its market share in groceries specifically has grown from 0.8% to 2.2%, the WSJ reports.

🛌💤 Stat of the Day: The era of weekday Project X-style ragers may be behind us, as more and more young people choose to spend their nights Netflix and sleeping instead. In 2022, those in their 20s reported getting an average of nine hours and 28 minutes of sleep, per an analysis of American Time Use Survey data by RentCafe – an 8% increase from eight hours and 47 minutes in 2010. Bedtimes are also creeping up. Those between 18–34 went to bed at 10:06 pm on average in January, compared with 10:18 pm last January, according to a new Sleep Number analysis.

🤔 Did You Know?... The average smartphone user scrolls through 519 inches – or ~43 feet – worth of content each day, according to research reported by The Times UK. Put another way, that’s the equivalent of ~3 miles per year – a real punch in the face to the person writing this, given he’s ran less than that over the past two years.

📰 Worth a Read: Fourteen centenarians share their life advice → (Washington Post)

• ☝️ A set of six Nike Air Jordans known as the Dynasty Collection were auctioned off for $8 million on Friday; the shoes, worn by Michael Jordan during each of the Chicago Bulls' six clinching NBA championship games in the ‘90s, set a global auction record for game-worn sneakers.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with BestBodiesforLife

• 💰 US markets closed up across the board on Friday (S&P: +1.1%; Dow: +0.4%; Nasdaq: +1.7%); the S&P ended the day at a record-high.
• 💼 The US economy added 353,000 nonfarm jobs in January, exceeding economist estimates of 185,000 jobs and up from December's upwardly revised 333,000 jobs.
• 🗣️ Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a 60 Minutes interview aired on Sunday that the central bank will likely move to cut interest rates at a slower pace than what the market expects.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🙏 Carl Weathers, the NFL linebacker-turned-actor who starred in Rocky, Happy Gilmore, and The Mandalorian, died at 76. RIP Chubbs.
• 🎧 Spotify has reportedly agreed to a new multiyear deal with comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan worth up to $250 million. | 🏆 The 66th Grammy Awards took place last night; Taylor Swift made history by winning her fourth album of the year award for Midnights; she also announced the release of a new album, The Tortured Poets Department, out April 19. (More highlights from the night | See the full list of winners)
• ⚖️ Tennessee and Virginia sued the NCAA over the legality of its name, image, and likeness (NIL) guidelines. (Read more)

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Dooeys

• 🧠 Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison became the first to develop functional 3D-printed human brain tissue. (Read more)
• ❌❌ A Stanford Medicine-led study has identified why women are at much higher risk of autoimmune disorders than men; a process known as X chromosome inactivation, meant to throttle the activity of the second X chromosome, can trigger an immune system response. (Read more)
• ☂️☀️ Scientists are exploring a plan to cool the Earth by blocking the Sun’s rays with "space umbrellas." (Read more)

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🌧️ Over half a million California residents were without power and ~37 million were under flood watches or warnings as of yesterday evening, as the state was hit with its second atmospheric river in less than a week. (What’s an atmospheric river?)
• 📰 Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped at gunpoint 50 years ago yesterday by the Symbionese Liberation Army; she later joined her captors in a 1974 San Francisco bank robbery that earned her a prison sentence.
• 🗳️ President Joe Biden easily won the South Carolina Democratic primary, garnering 96% of the vote; the state’s Republican primary is scheduled for February 24. | ⚖️ Fulton County DA Fani Willis, who’s in charge of prosecuting the Georgia election interference case against former President Trump, acknowledged that she had a romantic relationship with a lawyer whom she appointed to lead the Trump prosecution; Willis also denied any conflict of interest. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🚫📲 If you have one of these apps on your Android phone, delete it immediately.

Monday: National Weatherpersons’ Day

Tuesday: Nevada holds Democratic primary

Wednesday: SCOTUS hears arguments in Texas border razor wire case

Thursday: SCOTUS hears arguments in a case seeking to ban Trump from the presidential ballot; Nevada holds GOP caucuses

Friday: President Biden hosts German leader Olaf Scholz at the White House

On Friday, we covered Apple’s new Vision Pro mixed-reality headset, which marks Apple’s first foray into a new product category since smartwatches in 2015.

❓ Our question to you: Do you plan on buying the Apple Vision Pro?

• 👍 Yes: 13%
• 👎 No: 73%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 14%

Click here to read some the best longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 7,119 votes and 476 longform responses.

Most millennials in the US grew up with Elmo as their best friend. 

And, apparently, many still find him a source of comfort. When the beloved Sesame Street character posted a message last week asking the masses how they were doing, he got quite the earful back. 

• Thousands upon thousands of replies came flooding into Elmo's inbox, with people joking about their mental states on X. 

🏠 Lalalala, lalalala, Elmos World... Whether venting to an imaginary puppet is the most healthy coping strategy or not, Elmo came back two days later with a caring response: 

• “Wow! Elmo is glad he asked! Elmo learned that it is important to ask a friend how they are doing.”

Guess the definitions of the following Greek/Latin root words.

1. Amic
2. Brev
3. Eso
4. Gel
5. Ject

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Amic = Friend (e.g., amicable)
2. Brev = Brief (abbreviation, brevity)
3. Eso = Within (esoteric)
4. Gel = Frozen (gelatin)
5. Ject = Throw (eject)